As a non-native speaker this just reads a bit strange. Somewhat like trying to read 1600's english.
I have to ask: what is so special about it?
I have to ask: what is so special about it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-formation
Examples from the article:
- Disgruntled -> gruntled.
- Nonchalant -> chalant.
- Make no bones about it -> make bones about it.
- Traveling incognito -> traveling cognito.
- There were no two ways about it -> there were two ways about it.
- Inadvertently -> advertently.
- Misnomer -> nomer.
- Unrequited -> requited.
In general, these words and phrases formed by back-formation are not recognized as standard English. A native English speaker will see “gruntled”, have to pause for a moment, and consider that it must mean the opposite of “disgruntled”. Native English speakers will not use the world “gruntled” in conversation or writing unless they are doing it for comedic effect.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/disgruntle (from English)
https://www.etymonline.com/word/nonchalant (from Latin)
https://www.etymonline.com/word/incognito (from Latin)
https://www.etymonline.com/word/inadvertence (from Latin)
https://www.etymonline.com/word/misnomer (from French)
Requite is a currently recognised English word: https://www.etymonline.com/word/requite
Back-formation is just a process. If a language has a word that sounds like “prefix-X”, then back-formation is the process of creating the word “X” from it. Dis- is often a Latinate prefix meaning “apart”, “removal”, or “negation”, but in the case of dis-gruntled and dis-combobulate means “completely”, so the process of adding dis- and then removing dis- has changed the meaning of “gruntled”. It is therefore a new word (if it were the same word, it would have the same meaning).
Another problem is that the imported word may have changed in meaning. “Nonchalant” may have Latinate origin if you dig deep enough, but we really took it from the French nonchaloir to disregard and French indeed has the (uncommon) chaloir to regard. However, the English word “nonchalant” does not have the same meaning as the French word “chalant”—in English it is a feeling or attitude—so when you rip the non- prefix off you are not in any sense getting something that approximates the French “chaloir” that “nonchalant” was created from in the first place.
A final problem is that the affix may not exist in the first place. “Choate” is simply nonsense, “inchoate” comes from the Latin “incohare” which means to begin and there’s simply no affix to remove.
If you have a mathematical mind, think of it as non-commutative. You can add a affix, and you can remove an affix, and you can borrow the word into another language, but these are not commutative operations and the order in which you do things changes them.
“I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”
I think he uses it, not just in one of his books, but in several, maybe in slightly different forms.
The verb “requite” and the adjective “requited” are quite normal English words, and “unrequited” is derived from them in the normal way.
“Unrequited” may be the form most commonly encountered (“mutual” is most common in many places “requited” would naturally fit), but the other forms are not neologisms created by backformation.
Most of the phrases are used in a way where it makes sense what’s being said, but most native speakers only use the phrases slightly modified to mean the opposite of how they’re being used in the writing.
Kempt vs unkempt for example.
I just meant that the frequency of occurrence is usually used in ways that mean the opposite of.
Kempt I would say has a rare occurrence in most speech.
Unkempt is much more common.
Disgruntled, for example is a common word; gruntled is not.
Regarding the 1600's English, for me this is definitely easier to understand than Shakespeare.